John O'Hara (1905-1970) was one of the most prominent American writers of the twentieth century. Championed by Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Dorothy Parker, he wrote seventeen novels, including Appointment in Samarra, his first; BUtterfield 8, which was made into a film starring Elizabeth Taylor; Pal Joey, which was adapted into a Broadway musical as well as a film starring Frank Sinatra; and Ten North Frederick, which won the National Book Award. He has had more stories published in The New Yorker than anyone else in the history of the magazine. Born in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, he lived for many years in New York and in Princeton, New Jersey, where he died.
Lorenz Hart (1895-1943) was an acclaimed lyricist best known for his collaborations with Richard Rodgers on a number of Broadway scores. His many hit songs with Rodgers include "Blue Moon," "My Funny Valentine," and, for
Pal Joey, "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered" and "I Could Write a Book." Born in Harlem, Hart spent his life in New York City.
Richard Rodgers (1902-1979) was one of the most influential composers in Broadway history. A longtime collaborator with Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II, he wrote more than forty musicals, including
South Pacific,
The King and I,
The Sound of Music, and
Oklahoma! He was the first person to win all the major awards in his field--a Grammy, an Emmy, an Oscar, a Tony, and a Pulitzer Prize--and, along with Hammerstein, was named one the twenty most influential artists of the twentieth century by
Time magazine and CBS News. Broadway's Richard Rodgers Theatre was dedicated to him in 1990.
Thomas Mallon (foreword) is the author of numerous novels, including
Finale: A Novel of the Reagan Years and
Watergate, which was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. The recipient of Guggenheim and Rockefeller fellowships, as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award for reviewing and the Vursell prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters for distinguished prose style, he has been published in
The New Yorker,
The Atlantic,
and
The New York Times Book Review.
He is a professor of English at George Washington University.
